[DeadMoneyDad]

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Before I go on (and on and on) I would like to thank soulvamp and adanthar the "Possibly Too Level Headed" [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] for their words of support.

Now BluffTHIS! since you asked me nicely, without accusations of being a plant or someone's puppet, I will gladly respond--

1) Is your opposition to discussing and using the skill argument rooted in a desire to see poker lumped in with -EV casino gambling?

Not at all. I honestly think that it's a smokescreen. That it's a sham invented by politicians to justify their opposition or support based solely on political favor.

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Perhaps that is true that pols are only interested in self preservation, it is a lesson we as voters have helped re-enforce from time to time.

But the real underlying truth is all politics is local. That locality is only as large as the geograhical area that encompasises the registered voters who decide any pols fate in the next election.

Because of that and almost only because of that and our Consitutional history many laws in this country are controled at the most apporpiate local level. Gambling before it became an internet phenom was exclusively controled due to geography "local" politics.

We do not choose to have a skills game argument. It is simply the political "lay of the land." We can choose to fight from the political "highground" we have avilable to us, or wish for an ideal battleground.

A collariary of all politics is the fact that politics is the art and battle of the doable. Those that choose to fight crusades or tilt at windmills, seal their own fate from the outset.

This is why Sun Zu, Clausewitz, Machiavelli, among others are almost required reading in political science and always in good campaign schools. You do not have to aspire to nor be a "Prince" to need the ability to think like one, as Niccolo teaches in his often over looked preface to his work.

Ignoring history, the lay of the land, and the teachings of others that often died for their mistakes is not some college exercise but a foundation for sucess in both life as well as essential in politics.

The old saying is "wish in one hand and spit in the other, which fills up faster?"; shows the sheer futility of any strategy of any endavor that ignores reality infavor of hope for anything including the ideal.

So we face this "battle" on the best understanding of the true nature and offensive as well as defensive nature of the ground the battle field the battle will be fought, using as much of our talents, knowledge, dedication, and heart used in the most effective manner possible to reach our goals based on the science of the warefare to be conducted, politics.


D$D